The bargain of my previous stay in Victoria was sadly already occupied owing to it being the weekend, and since after the debacle of Rosario bus station I was in no mood to start hunting around for alternatives, I checked into what appeared to be a hotel just over the road from the bus station. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the local prison, but I didn't know this at the time: exploiting my ignorance of the truth, the administration took my money anyway, and it was only when I got to the cell, with its one tiny window high up at the top of the wall, that I realised I'd been had.

The next day I resolved to leave my tyre track upon as many kilometres of road as possible (although it was quite a wrench tearing myself away from my beautiful hotel room). I covered 45km in the first two hours, a testimony to my almost superhuman powers of cycling and nothing at all to do with a favourable wind direction

. I arrived in the small town of NogoyŠ, and stopped for a congratulatory lunch in the main square, where some girls were playing the old classic 40 40. Sadly, a right turn in said town put the wind in my face and progress thereafter was not quite so bedazzling.

And then, at around the 80km mark, the first disaster struck - a puncture. I can hear you thinking, "that's not such a disaster, just fix it!" However, finding a puncture on a windy day is analagous to being presented with a capacious barn stacked full to the ceiling with hay, and being asked to locate the needle cunningly planted therein.

But this was nothing compares with the second disaster, which struck around 20km later. I stopped in a passing petrol station to grab an alfajor to give me a boost for the last push (these are the most disgustingly delicious lumps of pure revolting sweetness that you could ever imagine - dulce de leche sandwiched between three layers of biscuits all covered in milk chocolate). I stopped my minidisc player out of politeness so as to be able to communicate my wish to the shopkeeper, and upon emerging, it wouldn't restart! But how dare it? I had been so enjoying singing along to the Beatles' Fixing a Hole! But worse, what if that was it for the rest of my trip? I was not even able to contemplate such a state of affairs.

For a change, and in spite of the disasters, I beat dusk to my destination by some minutes. Don't be fooled by its having the same name as my last destination - I really did go a long way today - honest - and here's the statistics to prove it: